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Here's why an anti-Trump wave won't wash many Texas Republicans out of Congress

Democrats are hoping to regain control of Congress on an anti-Donald Trump wave. But not even a tsunami could make a difference in most Texas races.

First-term Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, (right) talks with a supporter at a campaign office. Many House Republican incumbents worry that blowback from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's anti-Hispanic rhetoric and promises to build a towering wall the length of the U.S.-Mexico border could hurt their re-election chances. The problem is especially acute for those in heavily Latino districts like that of Hurd, whose territory encompasses 820 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)(AP)

UPDATE: This story was updated to clarify that Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions has no Democratic opponent in his re-election bid.

WASHINGTON —Democrats are hoping to regain control of Congress on an anti-Donald Trump wave. But not even a tsunami could make a difference in most Texas races.

Except for a closely watched match in West Texas between freshman Rep. Will Hurd and the one-term Democrat he ousted in 2014, Pete Gallego, Democrats aren’t poised to capitalize if the presidential contest turns into a blowout.

For starters, nearly all the GOP-held seats are so safely red, only an epic scandal could cause them to flip. The GOP-controlled Legislature made sure of that the last time it redrew districts.

It also takes a challenger to beat an incumbent, and in eight of the 25 districts held by Republicans, Democrats aren’t even on the ballot. Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions, for example, has no Democratic opponent in his bid for an 11th term.

WASHINGTON, DC - Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions, the Republican chairman of the House Rules Committee, has no Democratic opponent in the November election. (Photo by Oliver Douliery/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

The combination makes Democratic strategist Colin Strother cringe. He knows the odds are against his party, but he wishes it had adopted the flood-the-field strategy Republicans employed in the 1990s, while they were in the minority.

“Republicans ran someone everywhere, every cycle, just in case things broke the right way: a little scandal over here, someone dies over there, someone gets [caught] with a DUI 45 days out. ... The political gods smile upon you and, bam, you pick up something you’re not supposed to get,” said Strother, who has worked on Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar’s campaigns. “The Sessions seat is a perfect example of how, if things broke just the right way, it wouldn’t do us any good.”

But Matt Angle, another longtime Texas Democratic strategist whose resume includes a stint as top staffer at the party’s national House campaign arm, said hyperpartisan electoral maps make recruiting a challenge.

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“It’s hard to ask somebody to run if you can’t, with a straight face, lay out a win scenario for them,” he said.

There’s hardly consensus that a wave election is likely. Democrats need to flip 30 seats nationwide to retake the House, and five to control the Senate — four if Hillary Clinton wins, which would install Democrat Tim Kaine as vice president and Senate tiebreaker. Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz aren't up for re-election this year.

Republicans dismiss such talk. Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, sees 24 competitive House districts nationwide — not enough to flip control of the House even if Democrats win all of them. And, he told reporters on Thursday, he doesn’t expect a significant down-ballot effect because Trump and Clinton are “equally unpopular.”

“Throughout the year, there have been folks on the other side who claim that all they have to do is tie our member to Donald Trump, and game over,” Walden said. “I'm not seeing empirical data that backs that.”

Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said the country is too polarized for a wave the magnitude of Ronald Reagan’s 49-state re-election landslide in 1984. But he does see potential for an election that weakens Texas Republican incumbents.

“The downside for the Democratic Party is they did not realize back in December there was even a remote possibility of a wave election, and as a result, did not recruit top-tier candidates to run against candidates who are potentially vulnerable,” he said, referring to the state’s mid-December filing deadline.

If they had predicted Trump's rise, they might have considered backing strong, well-funded candidates for what Jones calls “pink seats” — districts that lean red, but not overwhelmingly so.

Jones believes that, in the right scenario, Arlington Rep. Joe Barton could also be vulnerable.

Barton, elected to Congress in Reagan's 1984 wave, faces little-known Democrat Ruby Faye Woolridge, a community activist who has run for the Arlington school board and Tarrant County clerk without success. She had $900 in her campaign account in mid-July. Barton, who easily beat back challengers in his primary, had $334,000.

On paper, these districts are safely Republican. President Barack Obama lost Sessions’ district in 2012 by 10 percentage points, Barton’s by 11 and Farenthold’s by 13.

But Jones thinks they could be in play in a true wave election, had Democrats mounted a formidable offense. “The way you win in wave elections is that you both ride the wave and you have someone on the surfboard, and, ideally, a professional surfer,” he said.

Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democrats, said it’s going to take new congressional maps in order to make Democrats competitive outside of the 23rd District.

“The reality is the state of Texas, led by Texas Republicans, have systematically ensured that Texas families are not represented within their state government,” he said. “They have made sure Texas government does not look like Texas.”

A swath of minority groups sued over the 2011 redistricting, accusing Republicans of weakening the voting power of Hispanic and black Texans. A federal court in Washington agreed, and Texas has since used temporary maps drawn by judges while the court case plays out.

Democrat Pete Gallego of Alpine is challenging Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, in the 23rd Congressional District race.

Harold Cook, a longtime Democratic consultant, said that even if Trump brings volatility to the elections, “the most likely thing that will happen in a legislative district is what’s been happening in a legislative district, especially when it hasn’t been close,” he said, adding: “Except for District 23, which has been changing parties every time someone sneezes.”

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Democrats’ fortunes could change once the San Antonio federal district court issues a final ruling on the legal challenge to the district maps now in place, Cook said. Until then, most incumbents are unassailable.

Kevin Brannon, a longtime Texas GOP consultant, said while Democrats blame redistricting, they also lack a strong bench and compelling message in a heavily red state.

“Sometimes lightning strikes, but you have to be prepared for the storm,” he said. “And not having won a statewide election since 1994, Texas Democrats just don’t have the fundamentals in place.”

While Texas Democrats aren’t expected to take more than one U.S. House seat this cycle, they appear likely to make gains in the state House, as well as local elections.

David Wasserman, who tracks U.S. House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said a more likely effect of a wave election in Texas would be an increase in Hispanic turnout and erosion of support for Republicans in high-income suburbs.

In Texas, and elsewhere, few races are true contests, thanks to the precision with which district boundaries are drawn. In effect, he said, “we are holding censuses of how many Democrats or Republicans live in a given area.”